Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, is one of six pilot sites employing strategies, examining policies, and developing evidence through research to reduce implicit bias, enhance procedural justice, and promote racial reconciliation. Minneapolis was selected as a pilot site for its demonstrated willingness and capacity to engage in the National Initiative’s research, intervention, and evaluation process, as well as its jurisdiction size and demographic composition.

This status report comes as Minneapolis moves into a fourth year of work with the National Initiative: moving forward, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) will take steps to institutionalize each component of the NI to ensure sustainability and longevity.

If you would like to read the 2016 status report for Minneapolis, you can find it here.

In a concrete step toward improved transparency and accountability, the Minneapolis Police Department is consistently adding its departmental policies to its Policy & Procedure Manual webpage. Additionally, the MPD regularly publishes its data on crime, arrests, use of force, and officer-involved shootings in an easy-to-navigate dashboard format.

A first site visit in June 2015 brought together interested residents and community groups of Minneapolis to participate in a community convening to discuss the National Initiative project. At this convening, the National Initiative introduced the goals and strategies of the project and explained how community members can participate directly.

The National Initiative team also met with city leaders, representatives from the police department, and prosecutors to discuss the role of criminal justice practitioners in this historic initiative.

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges released a statement offering condolences to the family of Jamar Clark one year after his death. Mayor Hodges also noted the introspection this tragedy has driven and the progress that she has sought to make.

Below are some items that the National Initiative and Minneapolis have produced so far.

National Initiative staff visited Minneapolis in February 2016 to meet with senior law enforcement officials as well as community members and representatives from various local support and advocacy organizations.

As part of the National Initiative’s commitment to evaluating the effectiveness of its interventions, the Urban Institute surveyed residents from Minneapolis’s highest-crime neighborhoods regarding their perceptions of and attitudes toward criminal activity and the police department. The surveys were conducted through face-to-face interviews in fall 2015.

The implementation plan for Minneapolis contains information regarding trainings in procedural justice and implicit bias as well as initial assessments of key stakeholders' attitudes going into the reconciliation process. The document goes into detail regarding unique interventions and what certain of these processes entail.

The National Initiative's first site visit to Minneapolis came in June 2015 when partners met to begin laying the foundation for the work that will take place over the next three years. The schedule included broader agenda setting with representatives from various groups and organizations as well as breakout meetings for smaller groups to discuss the strategy going forward.

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Minneapolis, officially the City of Minneapolis, is the county seat of Hennepin County, and larger of the Twin Cities, the 14th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, containing approximately 3.8 million residents.

Leadership

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